Deleting Product Images but not the Image File

This decision is insane. Who signed off on this.

Which idiot had so little foresight as to consider that the optimum way to edit image assets assigned to multiple SKU’s was with only a global over ride and no per SKU settings? Thanks for making my life hell, Now I have to delete an image and then re-load it onto 19 other products rather than just delete one instance of the same image.